M299-Mobile computing

M299
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Tutor-marked Assignment
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Contents Cut-off date December 3, 2016
M299, TMA Fall 2016
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Total Marks: 100
Contents
Question 1 (50 marks)……………………………………………………2
Question 2 (50 marks)……………………………………………………3
The content of this TMA has been adopted from the home works of the course CS 193A: Android App
Development
Winter 2015 at Stanford Engineering. 1
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1 http://web.stanford.edu/class/cs193a/index.shtml
AOU, Fall 2016, 2 Course M299, TMA
Questions 1 (50%)
Question 1 (50%)
Assignment description
The purpose of this question is to practice more advanced graphical layouts, as well as using more
widgets/views in a graphical user interface. As with question 1, we'll suggest some ideas for programs you
could write to practice layout. We will list several suggestions, but you only need to write one app to submit. If
you have a different idea for a program you want to make that will still allow you to explore layout, please feel
free to do something other than the suggestions provided.
Suggestion:
Write a basic game of tic-tac-toe, where two players take turns pressing buttons in a 3x3 grid to mark "X" or
"O" characters on them respectively. If any player can place three of their letter in a row horizontally, vertically,
or diagonally, that player wins the game.
Setting up the buttons for the game is a good opportunity to practice using GridLayout. You'll probably want to
set the buttons to have a large size so that they fill a large portion of the screen, as well as giving them a large
font to make them easier to read and click.
If you want a simpler implementation, you can write your code as though two human players were playing it on
the same screen; the first tap is an X move, the second is an O move, and so on. If you want more challenge,
you could have the computer play as the second player. A simple strategy would be to just randomly move on
any open square, but a more complex computer player would try to "block" the human player if the human has
any two-in-a-rows and is one move away from winning the game.
Suggestion: Make Up Your Own
If you don't like our suggested assignment ideas or prefer to do something unique of your own, please feel free
to do so. Whether you do our suggestions or your own, we'd prefer to see an app that the following
qualities:
Your app should be set up as an Android Studio project, so it can easily be opened/run/graded by
Stanford University, CS 193A
Homework 2: Layout
of this assignment is to practice more advanced graphical layouts than you did in Homework 1, as well
widgets/views in a graphical user interface. As with HW1, we'll suggest some ideas for programs you
to practice layout. We will list several suggestions, but you only need to write one app to submit. If
different idea for a program you want to make that will still allow you to explore layout, please feel free to
other than the suggestions provided.
(small): Mr. Potato Head (thanks to Victoria Kirst for original assignment idea and images!)
app that displays a "Mr. Potato Head" toy on the screen as an
The toy has several accessories and body parts that can be placed
eyes, nose, mouth, ears, hat, shoes, and so on. We will provide
image files for each body part and accessory, such as body.png,
hat.png, and so on. Initially your image view should display only
body, but if the user checks/unchecks any of the check boxes below
corresponding body part or accessory should appear/disappear.
display the various body parts is to create a separate ImageView for
and lay them out in the XML so that they are superimposed on top
other. You can achieve this with a RelativeLayout in which you give
the same position, though you should probably nest it in some
layout for the screen. The check boxes should align themselves into a grid of rows and columns.
whether or not an image (or any other widget) is visible on the screen by setting its
visibility property in the XML, and/or by calling its setVisibility method in your Java code. The
setVisibility method accepts a parameter such as View.VISIBLE or View.INVISIBLE. There is also a
getVisibility method if you need to check whether a widget is currently visible.
(medium): Tic-Tac-Toe
game of tic-tac-toe, where two players take turns pressing buttons in a 3x3 grid
or "O" characters on them respectively. If any player can place three of their
horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, that player wins the game.
the buttons for the game is a good opportunity to practice using GridLayout.
probably want to set the buttons to have a large size so that they fill a large portion of
well as giving them a large font to make them easier to read and click.
a simpler implementation, you can write your code as though two human
playing it on the same screen; the first tap is an X move, the second is an O
on. If you want more challenge, you could have the computer play as the
player. A simple strategy would be to just randomly move on any open square, but a
complex computer player would try to "block" the human player if the human has any
and is one move away from winning the game.
(large): Hangman
Hangman game that displays an image of a gallows and a hanging man, along with a word that the
trying to guess. The word is chosen randomly from a provided dictionary. At all times the game displays a
the letters the player has guessed correctly; for example, if the word is "apples" and the player has
p, and t, the clue would be "?pp?e?". The user can type single-letter guesses into an EditText. (The
allows the user to type multi-letter strings and non-letters; a robust game would handle such attempts
well as other errors like trying to guess the same letter twice, etc.) You can display a message such as a
the user guesses the word correctly or runs out of guesses and ends the game.
AOU, Fall 2016, 3 Course M299, TMA
others.
Your project should not always use the default names.(For example, rather than calling your project the
default name of MyApplication and your activity the default name of MainActivity, call your project
something like Hangman and your activity something like HangmanMainActivity, etc.)
Your app should not use the default layout.
Your layout XML should adjust the box model properties of at least one widget or view. (Example:
setting the gravity, weight, padding, margins, etc. of a widget to adjust its appearance or spacing.) Your
app should respond to at least two events. (Example: clicks on a button.)
Along with your app, please create a file named README. txt that contains your name and email
address along with the name of your app and a very brief description of it, along with any special
instructions that the user might need to know in order to use it properly (if there are any).
Question 2 (50%)
Assignment description
The aim of this question is to practice the inter-process communications, services, activity life cycle, and
persistence and non-resistance storage.
Suggestion:
Write a mobile app that allows the user to record new contacts. One should be able to record a telephone
number and its corresponding name. For this purpose, two activities are needed as follows:
The first activity is used to allow the user to add a new contact (name and corresponding telephone number) and
save it in a persistent storage.
The second activity allows the user to search for a telephone number using a contact name. The user enters a
name and click on a button to find telephone number, the system either finds the user or provides the
corresponding telephone number or it displays an appropriate error message.
It is up to you how to design the GUI of booth activities.
If you don't like our suggested assignment ideas or prefer to do something unique of your own, please feel free
to do so. Whether you do our suggestions or your own app, we'd prefer to see an app that has the following
qualities:
ü Your app should be set up as an Android Studio project, so it can easily be opened/run/graded by
others.
ü Your app should use at least 2 different activities.
ü Your app should make us of persistent storage file systems provided by android.
ü Your app should gracefully handle rotation from portrait to landscape orientation.
ü Your app should save some kind of states that it behaves well when the user exits and comes back later.
ü Along with your app (inside the ZIP), turn in a file named README. Txt that contains your name and
email address along with the name of your app and a very brief description of it, along with any special
instructions that the user might need to know in order to use it properly (if there are any).
For example:
Sami Student
NumberGame 2.05 - This app shows two numbers on the screen and asks
the user to pick the larger number.
How to structure the submitted files for the two questions:
AOU, Fall 2016, 4 Course M299, TMA
Delete the content of the subfolder app/build/intermediates, this will reduce dramatically the size of your
project.
Create a folder and call it “M299_YourID_BranchName_F2015”, inside this folder create a folder for
each questions and call it question (replace X with 1 for question1 and 2 for question2) and put each
app project in the corresponding folder.
• Zip the folder “m299_YourID_BranchName_F2015”and submit it as single file.
Links
Below there are useful links about this course material and about computer science.
Books:
If you feel like buying additional book to learn more about Android, here are two that we recommend:
• Android
Programming:
The
Big
Nerd
Ranch
Guide,
by
Bill
Phillips
and
Brian
Hardy
• Professional
Android
Application
Development,
by
Reto
Meier
Android:
• Genymotion,
a
faster
Android
emulator
• Google
Android
Developer
Docs
• Android
API
Reference
• Google
Android
Developer
Docs:
Installing
Android
Studio
• Google
Android
Developer
Docs:
UI
Design
• anddev.org
-­‐
Android
Development
Forum
• Android
Developers
Blog
-­‐
Blogspot
• Mobiforge
-­‐
Android
Design
and
Development
• DroidDraw
(draw
an
Android
UI
in
your
web
browser)
• DroidDraw
-­‐
Visual
Index
to
the
Android
Widgets
• ThinkAndroid
-­‐
How
to
Position
Views
Properly
in
Layouts
Java
Programming:
• Oracle's
Java
documentation
• CS
106A
Style
Guide
(guidelines
for
coding
style
and
design
that
we
want
you
to
follow
on
your
homework)
• Official
Oracle
Java
coding
conventions
• Google's
Java
style
guide
• CS
193A
Style
Guide
(guidelines
for
coding
style
and
design
that
we
want
you
to
follow
on
your
homework)
AOU, Fall 2016, 5 Course M299, TMA
Current
Events
and
News:
• (2015-­‐02-­‐22)
Android
Development
News
(a
collection
of
links
and
current
events
about
Android
development)
• (2015-­‐02-­‐09)
Creating
Android
Apps
with
Groovy
(a
new
programming
language
that
is
an
offshoot
of
Java)
• (2015-­‐01-­‐28)
Ars
Technica:
Signs
of
progress:
One
month
with
Android
Wear
5.0
(a
review
of
Android
watches)
• (2015-­‐01-­‐17)
Ars
Technica:
Google
won’t
fix
bug
hitting
60
percent
of
Android
phones
• (2015-­‐01-­‐12)
WSJ
Blog:
Google
decides
to
stop
fixing
security
bugs
in
Android
4.3
web
browser
• (2015-­‐01-­‐08)
ZDNet:
Android
Lollipop
is
out,
but
almost
no
one
is
using
it
• (2015-­‐01-­‐01)
Reddit
/r/android
-­‐
links
and
news
about
Android